Singapore

Businessman fined S$8,000 for hacking into Istana website

SINGAPORE — A businessman who hacked into the Istana website on Nov 8 last year was fined S$8,000 yesterday.

Delson Moo Hiang Kng, 43, pleaded guilty to a charge of unauthorised access to the server hosting the Istana website, after admitting to carrying out a cross-site scripting attack on the Google search function embedded in the site.

With the script embedded, Moo could cause the search function to display text and images that he had specified, TODAY reported earlier.

Moo was charged last November with two counts of unauthorised modification of computer material under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act. He could have been fined up to S$10,000 and/or jailed for up to three years. Two other similar charges were taken into consideration in the sentencing.

The hacking of the Istana website came amid a spate of high-profile cyber attacks around the same time that led to the arrest of several suspects. The attack on the Istana website was reported to the police on the day it happened — Nov 8 — the same day the website of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was compromised.

The hacking of the PMO and Istanawebsites came a day after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the authorities would spare no effort to track down those who threaten to attack Singapore’s computer networks and bring them to justice. CHANNEL NEWSASIA